006 - Is it worth it to pay for Online Leads?

How much are you spending for Online Inquiries?

Whether it's Zillow or Street Easy, it's common for agents to pump marketing dollars into generating online inquiries.

Here's how top agents are capitalizing on them, and the frame of mind they take when it comes to growing their business through these platforms.

Transcript

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Thinking about this more with a long-term approach instead of a short-term approach seems to be the difference between what top agents are doing versus the ones who are struggling. Welcome to the Lone Daddy Podcast, episode six. My name is Scott Nadler, and today I want to talk about online inquiries and the approach that top agents use. A lot of agents will use a portion of their marketing budget to capture clients online, whether it's through Zillow or Street Easy, et cetera. And some agents are extremely successful with this. They have an approach, they have a strategy that they use, and it works. There's actually one agent in particular who I reached out to and I asked her this question because I know that she has a lot of success with this. And I'm going to read her response in a bit, but I thought it was extremely valuable. And then there are other agents who struggle with this. And every month it seems like they're revisiting whether or not it makes sense for them to continue spending these marketing dollars because at this point in their journey, it's not working for them. I wanted to explore this a little bit more, and then I came across a post that addressed this as well. And the first comment I saw on this question, I thought was brilliant. The title here is Zillow Leads Reply Once and then Disappear. Any real estate agents here dealing with Zillow or Facebook leads replying once and then disappearing? We're getting inquiries consistently, and some people even respond right away, but a lot of conversations die before turning into a viewing or booked call. What's working for others right now to keep buyer/slash seller conversations going without sounding too automated or pushy? And the first response here I thought was great. This person wrote, the person who clicked that button did it because they liked a house. It had nothing to do with you. That's the whole problem right there. You're dealing with a wide funnel issue, not a follow-up issue. Most of those leads aren't ghosting you. They just never had strong intent to begin with. They saw a kitchen they liked at 11 p.m. and hit the blue button. By morning, they forgot they did it. So the question isn't how do I keep the conversation going? It's how do I stay in their orbit until they actually get serious? That means something longer burn, a newsletter, a consistent content showing up in their feed as the person who actually knows the market. When they're ready, you want to already exist in their head. The agents trying to engineer a 48-hour follow-up sequence to fix a funnel problem are solving the wrong thing. And I thought that was spot on. It was a really fantastic answer. And it sort of is a perfect segue to this other agent who I reached out to, who I've known for a long time, who again, I know has a lot of success converting online inquiries. So I asked this agent, how do you coach your team and what's the strategy for handling online inquiries, i.e., straight easy. They responded by saying, Scott, to start, we try to get the prospect on the phone. If we have their number, we will call to set up a consultation with that buyer. Communicating solely over email is a losing battle. Our team has scripts for these calls. Next, we want to provide value to that buyer. With online leads, we don't know if someone is casually looking in unserious or if someone is desperate to buy a home ASAP. Either way, there's a lot of value we can offer. The prospect will immediately be put on our drip campaign via email and text. These messages have nothing to do with selling them a property. The messages include interesting data about the market, interest rates, strategies, anecdotes, and so much more. We try to keep them short, digestible, and interesting. We've had a much higher success rate with this strategy. It's all about the relationship, not the transaction. Talk soon. And I think that that last line there is key. It's all about the relationship and not the transaction. I think so many agents will work and chase that one buyer or seller for that one property. And thinking about this more with a long-term approach instead of a short-term approach seems to be the difference between what top agents are doing versus the ones who are struggling. I found personally that I got a lot of value from that agent's response as well as the post that I saw online and that comment as well. All right, that is what I have for you today. Hit the subscribe button and I want to hear from you. I want to hear your thoughts. So please put those thoughts in the comment section. Whether you're struggling capturing online inquiries, or you have a lot of success converting these online leads to actual customers, I want to hear from you. And that's it. So I will see you on the next episode of the Lone Daddy Podcast. Thank you so much.